E-voting and Fraud Potential

E-voting is an issue that needs to be addressed if we are going to trust our electoral process. As of right now some large percent of the vote is recorded by electronic ballot. The problem stems from the fact that there is no physical "real world representation" (e.g. Paper ballot) of your vote that you can verify before entering your vote. Such a thing is also verifiable by multiple parties if there is a need for a recount. As it stands now e-voters enter their vote into a blackbox and have to trust on faith that their votes are being counter properly.

Point one is that one should never have to trust the electoral process; it should be verifiable. Point two is that there is good reason not to trust the company that built and maintains the software for the machines. That reason is security of the vote (this is ignoring the fact that the company's CEO said he would "do what it takes to get W elected" which is troubling enough).

From "liberated" Diebold emails:

Jennifer Price at Metamor (about to be Ciber) has indicated that she can access the GEMS Access database and alter the Audit log without entering a password. What is the position of our development staff on this issue? Can we justify this? Or should this be anathema?

Its a tough question, and it has a lot to do with perception. Of course everyone knows perception is reality. Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new. In VTS, you can open the database with progress and do the same. The same would go for anyone else's system using whatever database they are using. Hard drives are read-write entities. You can change their contents.
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This should quite obviously be a non-partisan issue. We all want clean verifiable elections that people can walk away from and know that their vote counted. We all do not want the rancor and turmoil that can occur if there is even a hint of irregularities as in this election where usually trust worthy exit polls (how international election monitors gauge the fairness of elections) indicated, for the second presidential election in a row, that the eventual loser was winning.

To that end please check out the Verified Voting Foundation. Or to put it in their words...

Our democracy is at stake and the time for action is now! This nationwide grassroots effort to restore the sanctity of our electoral process will succeed only through the efforts of volunteers who are willing to write letters, make telephone calls, visit legislators, and communicate our message to all our fellow Americans.